The 2027 presidential candidate of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, Adewole Adebayo, has promised to overhaul the Nigerian criminal system in a way that protects the innocent but punishes the culpable.
Adebayo made the declaration in Lagos on Thursday at the annual lecture organised by a foremost human rights organisation in Nigeria, the Committee for The Defence of Human CDHR, titled “Understanding Human Rights Beyond Emotions and Personal Interests.”
In his address delivered on his behalf by Comrade Mark Adebayo, his Campaign’s Chief Media and Communications Adviser, which he titled “The Counter-Intuitive Architecture of Human Rights”, Adebayo stated, that it was unfortunate that those administering Nigeria’s criminal justice systems were alleged to be corrupt.
His words: “It’s just unfortunate that those who administer Nigeria’s criminal justice system are often adjudged, rightly or wrongly, criminals by the society. This diminishes trust in the system and consequently creates a dangerous culture of self-help because the current system helps rich criminals and corrupt public officials to escape justice while the innocent or a petty criminal whole steal a one thousand Naira bread is sentenced to 10 years in jail. The one who steals Trillions from the treasury is taken to and from court in luxury jeeps. Our administration will overhaul Nigeria’s criminal system in a way that ensures equal delivery of justice, punishes criminals and protect the innocent and the poor. We cannot have a criminal justice system run by criminals.”
Speaking on the theme, he explained that human rights were designed to protect the individual, especially, when it was most unpopular to do so.
According to him, in contemporary discourse, human rights are frequently reduced to sentimental platitudes or weaponised as instruments of personal interest.
“However, the true architecture of Human Rights is neither emotional nor utilitarian. It is a rigorous, counter-intuitive legal framework designed to insulate foundational liberties from the shifting sands of public passion and majoritarian tyranny,” he said.
He said to understand human rights, there was the need to go beyond visceral reactions of empathy or indignation.
Rather, he said, “We must view them through the prism of deontology – the philosophical position that certain actions are inherently right or wrong, independent of their consequences.”
He stated that human rights did not exist to validate collective moral comfort, but to enforce structural discipline upon the state and the community.
He stated that to separate human rights from raw emotion, the law employed a “specialised taxonomy.”
“This vocabulary ensures that justice is administered via institutional mechanics rather than visceral impulses. At the heart of this framework lie several core legal doctrines: Juris et de jure (Of law and from law): Human Rights operate as irrebuttable presumptions of inherent dignity that cannot be overcome by the gravity of an alleged crime,” he said.
He stated further: “As a lawyer, I am aware of the common public misconception that defending a criminal means endorsing the crime. Legally, a defence lawyer’s role is not to prove that the client is factually “innocent” or morally good. Rather, their job is to serve as a check on state power and hold the prosecution to its absolute burden of proof: proving the crime beyond a reasonable doubt. If the state violates constitutional rights or provides flawed evidence, the lawyer’s duty is to expose those flaws.
“Procedural due process is the structural guarantee that the state must respect all legal rights owed to a person, balancing the power of law of the land. It demands that justice be blind to the emotional weight of the offense.
“Audi alteram partem (i.e. hear the other side) is the legal principle that dictates that no person shall be judged unheard. This principle ensures that regardless of how heinous a crime appears, the accused possesses an absolute right to a robust defense irrespective of public sentiments…
“When a society demands that an individual be stripped of these protections because their alleged actions are “monstrous,” the society attempts to replace de jure protections with de facto emotional vetoes.”
In his conclusion, he said, human rights were not a reward for virtue, but the systemic architecture that prevented humanity from sliding back into arbitrariness and tribalism.
According to him, true fidelity to human rights demands that “we stand firm in the defense of process, even when our emotions beg us to tear it down.”
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